StevePavlina.com Podcast #013 – Beyond Religion

Many readers/listeners have asked me privately about my particular religious and spiritual beliefs. Sometimes people also email me after making certain assumptions about what belief system I must follow, based on reading a subset of my articles. If you’ve actually read all of my articles and tried to guess what my spiritual beliefs are, you’d probably find it very difficult. Sometimes I write like an atheist, other times like a Buddhist, and still other times like some new agey person.

But the real truth is that I don’t identify with any particular belief system. Rather, I tend to shift between belief systems like you might switch between different programs on your computer, based on which piece of software is the most appropriate tool for the current situation. If you discuss time management with me, you might think I’m an atheist. If you discuss meditation with me, you might assume I’m a Buddhist. And if you discuss consciousness with me, you might think I follow some sort of new age philosophy. But none of these scenarios would give you an accurate picture.

I want to challenge the idea that you must make your religious and spiritual beliefs a part of your identity (ex. “I am a Catholic” or “I am an atheist”). I think that when you weave any philosophical, religious, or spiritual framework into your identity, you severely limit yourself, becoming like a computer that runs only one piece of software. In this podcast I present an alternative way to think about your most sacred beliefs, such that you gain their strengths without suffering their limitations. Think of this as Spirituality 2.0.